Global information networks are evolving rapidly toward Internet Protocol (IP)-based Next Generation Networks (NGNs) along with the dramatic development of computer and communication technologies. Another important feature of the next generation networks lies in coexistence of a plurality of radio technologies to form heterogeneous radio access networks.
FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of heterogeneous radio access networks in the prior art. As illustrated in FIG. 1, there are a variety of heterogeneous radio access networks which can be divided into a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), a Local Area Network (LAN) and a Personal Area Network (PAN) in terms of their coverage ranges, a point-to-multipoint single-hop network, a multi-hop network, a mesh network and an ad-hoc network in terms of their network architectures, etc. All or a part of these radio access network access an IP-based core network in a wired or wireless manner to obtain service for a user. Thus, the access networks can be connected to a heterogeneous access network manager by which the access networks are managed.
The heterogeneous radio access networks are significant from the respective perspectives of a radio technology, a coverage range, a network architecture, network performance, etc., and they form three-dimensional coverage in terms of geographical distribution and cooperate to provide a user with ubiquitous radio multimedia services with various contents. Radio spectrum resources available to these access networks are relatively rare.
In the next generation networks, the radio access networks interconnected over the IP-based core network can exchange information to offer an opportunity for an improved utilization rate of resources on one hand. On the other hand, the heterogeneous radio access networks form three-dimensional coverage with resource contention and interference to make it difficult to utilize the resources effectively. It is thus desirable to design an effective antenna management apparatus and method for efficient utilization of the resources of the next generation networks.